Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: During the month of February the gap between this year and the other years from the post-2010 period ...

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: During the month of February the gap between this year and the other years from the post-2010 period ...

I find Andy Lee's nicely-animated and musically-enhanced video graphs to be a great addition to the many wonderful sea ice visualizations out there. I do wish there was a way he could keep his more up-to-date, but given the considerable amount of work that goes into making them, any delays are completely understandable.
Anyway, as I promised Neven several days ago, I went ahead and added animation code to my three (for now) 3D graphs:http://iwantsomeproof.com/3d/siv-ds-weekly-3d.asphttp://iwantsomeproof.com/3d/siv-annual-3d.asphttp://iwantsomeproof.com/3d/siv-annual-percentage-3d.aspThe animation starts upon loading. To replay, just click the link in the lower left. And, yes, you can still use your mouse or touchscreen to move the graphic around in 3D space even while the animation continues.
(FWIW, I think the first one—the "death spiral" version—is most startling when animated; it's almost like watching water ice swirl down the bathtub drain...)

Santa Claus was worried that his home would soon disappear (it won't, it's safe in Walmart for the time being) and decided to look for information on Arctic sea ice. After all, the best thing you can do when fearing something, is try to understand it. Santa read and thought and read some more f...

@Lenevn: What? That seems a little like a guy who hasn't earned a dime in several years when he finds a wallet containing $300 suddenly claiming that his current financial state is still stable enough to resist current economic factors. In both cases, a dreadfully incorrect conclusion has been reached.

We have monthly PIOMAS updates, a new sea ice thickness product derived from SMOS brightness temperatures was presented earlier this month (see video), and now it's time for some more news from the third of the thickness trident: CryoSat-2. From the European Space Agency website: Arctic sea ice...

@Garethman: False equivalence is never pretty, but placing WUWT and SS on opposite ends of the same balance beam is one of the most hideous things I think I've ever seen. As James Dunlap said a few comments back, the two are nowhere close to being equally credible; your comparison is about as valid as placing Charles Darwin on one end of a playground see-saw and some anonymous high school dropoout Creationist on the other, and proclaiming, "See? They weigh about that same, so they're both right!" To paraphrase Jules Winnfield: the two aren't in the same ballpark; they're not in the same league; they're not even in the same sport.
With that in mind, then, go ahead and troll this forum all you wish. But I, for one, will be tuning you out. Not because, as you may choose to believe, I'm guilty of "reductionist black and white thinking", but because I know a fake skeptic when I encounter one.
Good day...

Here's a first open thread for this freezing season, which will be followed by monthly instalments. I apologize yet again for having been so inactive on the blog. I'm the kind of person who shuts off certain activities when being too busy with momentarily higher-priority stuff, but with the exte...

@Colorado Bob--Curry, huh? While I hesitate lest I throw the wheat out with the chaff, I have a hard time giving credence to pretty much anything she has to say nowadays, given her more recent outlandish statements about climate change. And Wyatt is an up-and-comer in the denialosphere, with multiple mentions on "skeptic" blogs such as Tallbloke's and WUWT. But I also don't want to appear all ad hominemy, so I'll say that Arctic Sea ice almost certainly didn't reach record lows last year due to their "stadium wave" hypothesis, we're not now headed into a two-decade long increase in ASI because of same, and the pair haven't reversed the findings of the bradn new IPCC report.

Here's a first open thread for this freezing season, which will be followed by monthly instalments. I apologize yet again for having been so inactive on the blog. I'm the kind of person who shuts off certain activities when being too busy with momentarily higher-priority stuff, but with the exte...

@Pete Williamson" "Where is the consistency?"
The "consistency" is over at WUWT, where the shrinking legion of WattsBots surprises no one by--again, and as always--desperately latching onto any and every single bit of out-of-context data Willard dictates to them they should, something he does only when he's manipulated reality enough to convince himself those bits somehow "prove" the planet's not warming, and even if it is it's not caused by man, and even if it is it's not that bad, and even if it is we'll find our way out of it, and even if we don't it doesn't matter because the planet's not warming...

Like I've written in the previous blog post with the same title, I'm not just interested in the science/ observation of Arctic sea ice and the consequences of its loss, but also in the question how and how far these events are finding their way to the collective consciousness. Are people becomi...

John Abraham, known as the dragon that slew the Viscount and an excellent climate science communicator, approached me a while ago with a couple of questions concerning the blog and Arctic sea ice in general. He turned it into this ego-inflating article on the Guardian website: Global warming, A...

The Arctic is about to welcome another big cyclone. Though probably not as large, intense and long-lasting as last year's Great Arctic Cyclone, it is rather intruiging to see a cyclone of similar magnitude occur so soon after the last one. It makes one wonder whether the Arctic will be seeing mo...

I realize there's been a recent de-emphasis on day-to-day SIA/SIE values, and for good reason. But, still, these stats caught my attention:
--IJIS sea ice extent decreased by 911k km2 from 1 May through 26 May. That's the smallest extent drop for that period in at least the past 11 years, and it is, in fact, smaller than the average 5/1-5/26 drop for the decades of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. (The average over the past ten years--2003 to 2102--has been 1.24 million km2, and the 1979-2012 average has been 1.26 million km2.)
--CT sea ice area decreased by 971k km2 from 1 May through 26 May. That's the smallest extent drop for that period in the past 16 years (since 1996), and it is, in fact, smaller than the average 5/1-5/26 drop for the decades of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. (The average over the past ten years--2003 to 2102--has been 1.3 million km2, and the 1979-2012 average has been 1.27 million km2.) Only three years in the record have seen smaller drops for that period: 1989, 1990, and 1996.
I'm not implying anything; I'm just bringing up some info I found interesting...

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) and IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2012 period (NSIDC has ...

The post at Our Changing Climate is definitely an interesting one. It's disappointing--though entirely expected, of course--to see Judith Curry downplaying the role of greenhouse gases in the disappearance of ice, and practically going into contortions to do so. Though I suppose the fact that she's willing to admit a 50/50 split between natural variation and anthropogenic causes is a sign of progress where she's concerned. At any rate, I, too, tend to agree with Curry's colleague--NSIDC's Walt Meier--in his agreement with Day et al. 2012, who (as noted in the article) arrived at a 70-95% anthropogenic origin for ice loss based on the following:
The decline in sea ice correlates with the increase in global temperature.The decline is outside the range of normal variability over the past several decades and probably over the past several centuriesThe decline is pan-Arctic, with all regions experiencing declines throughout all or most of the year.Climate model simulations cannot explain the decline without taking greenhouse gases into account.There does not appear to be another mechanism to sufficiently explain the long-term decline.

Below is a guest blog by Jos Hagelaars who regularly posts on Bart Verheggens Dutch-English climate blog. Jos has been a hot streak lately, looking back at how the Klotzbach 2009 Hot Spot paper is holding up, producing a new iconic graph called the Wheelchair (TM: Rabett inc.) and with his lat...

(Cross posted on the sea ice forum)
Now I will place money that this year's Arctic sea ice maximum was indeed reached on Day 59, with 13,799,198 square kilometers. My thinking:
On Day 81 (yesterday), sea ice area decreased around another 100k km2. That's the sixth drop in the last seven days, for a single week decrease of 341k km2.
To surpass the maximum to-date, area would have to grow by nearly 344k, and that much post-Day 81 growth has never happened (See the linked image). Even last year's unusual late growth spurt added just 108k km2 after this date.
Only four years in the SIA record had maximums occurring after Day 81: '85, '99, '03, and '12.
Area is currently 145k less than on this same day last year.
By this day in 2007, area had already fallen below 13 million km2 on its way to a new record minimum.
Various forecasts hold out little hop for a late freeze.
So, while my word doesn't mean much, I'm 99% certain that this year's area maximum has been reached, and we're on the way to a new record low minimum roughly 6 months from now.

Cryosphere Today sea ice area and IJIS sea ice extent numbers are now so much below the peaks reached so far that it looks like the ice pack has reached its maximum size and will now start to get smaller as we transition from freezing season to melting season. Mind you, I called the max CT SIA t...

I would tend to agree about both area and extent, but after having been burnt so badly with last year's failed prediction(s), I'd be hesitant to lay any money down just yet. 2012 SIA, after all, did see an additional 225,000 km2 growth after yesterday's date. But then again, even that flukish amount wouldn't push this year's area back over its peak-to-date of 13,799,198 km2 on Day 59. And with the forecast, as you've noted, even that much further growth doesn't seem likely.
Extent seems a little iffier as the putative peak is so close and so recent, but the same forecast applies, so it's probably done, as well.
(FWIW, "plume" projection graphs for both Arctic sea ice area and sea ice extent indicate that this year's respective maximums have probably been reached.
So: good. Bring on the melting; 2013 is going to be very, er, interesting...

Cryosphere Today sea ice area and IJIS sea ice extent numbers are now so much below the peaks reached so far that it looks like the ice pack has reached its maximum size and will now start to get smaller as we transition from freezing season to melting season. Mind you, I called the max CT SIA t...

I've seen the 'R' word thrown around here a bit IRT Piomas sea volume, but to be honest, I'm not quite sure why. Some facts:
For all of January 2012, SIV was higher than it was on the same day in 2011.
For much of March 2012, SIV was higher than it was on the same day in 2011.
For a goof part of April and May 2012, SIV was higher than it was on the same day in 2011.
In fact, 2012 volume was higher than same-day 2011 volume on all but 35 of the first 130 days of the year.
The point being, it's neither logical nor historically valid to speak of a recovery based solely on Q1 data.
No, I'm afraid that, much as some may wish otherwisee, there simply are no reliable signs of an incipient recovery.

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Excellent news! The trend line has crept up some more and 2013 now has 133 km3 more ice than 2012 an...

Neven wrote:
Perhaps they should focus the models more on the consequences of disappearing sea ice, instead of the disappearing itself (as they might not be able to model that before it's gone)?
I tend to agree. At the present, we're like shopkeepers obsessing over the exact placement and angle of our store's security cameras, while thieves busy themselves emptying out the place. Or, for a possibly better analogy, we're like doctors so taken with guessing when I our patient may die that we fail to notice that he already has...
Werther wrote:
We eagerly await any sign on the quality of the ice cover as we enter a summer that could bring an ice free North Pole for the first time in at least 5000 years
Of course, that will be followed by a "recovery" of historical proportions. I can already see October's WUWT headline: "In blow to alarmists, Arctic sea ice grows from 0 to 3 million km2 in just four weeks, the fastest freeze ever recorded!"

I was hesitating whether I should write about this (besides my personal combination of busy/lazy) for a couple of days, because the Arctic is such an amazing place that it's easy to get carried away. When you see something for the first time, it's tempting to go: "Oh my Gawd, that haz got to b...

I just wanted to make note (and if someone else has already done so, my apologies) that as of Day 45 (2/14), CT SIA is currently at 13.231 million km2, which is already 87,000 km2 greater than 2011's record low area maximum of 13.144 million km2. Since it's likely to be around three to four more weeks (or longer) before this year's maximum is reached, the 2013 maximum may very well end up higher than just about any year since 2003. I wouldn't be surprised, in fact, if SIA were to nudge over the 14 million mark this year for the first time in a decade.
However...as has been stated many times, including after last year's late and high maximum--all the new ice is thin and fragile, and will begin to disappear in massive clumps once the sun starts popping over the Arctic horizon.

The previous open thread has gotten full enough, so here's a new one. We might want to kick off with this animation made by commenter A-Team: His comment: Don't miss this -- it's happening right now, by the hour -- so head on over to 80N 150W. A huge fracture has been opening a bit east of B...

Since we're being all spirally and whatnot, I thought I'd mention that I've posted a new "death spiral"-type image.
Click to enlarge:
This one should be self-explanatory, but in brief, it's a(nother) polar plot showing September average (note: not minimum) PIOMAS volume by decade and year, with one full decade required to complete each circuit. It's pretty clear that the bullseye will be reached within just a handful of years.
(I plan to animate this one very shortly; that should be eye-opening.)

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: The good news is that the 2013 trend line is showing an uptick. The difference with 2012 and 2011 i...

I doubt this is the end of the record streak, but as we approach the end of the year, this will probably be the final record domino of 2012. And what a fitting number to end it with! The record fell over three weeks ago (see data). The reason I'm reporting it now is not just because I'm lazy o...

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

A quick note about CT SIA: the dataset wasn't updated yesterday (for .7671), but was updated this morning to include only .7699. That's not an issue. However, at the moment, the line for 2012.7699 contains the average anomaly for day .7671 (not .7699 as it should), and thus reflects an incorrect anomaly for the day of -2.4731667. The actual anomaly as calculated against the average for .7699 is -2.5723857, making it the eighth largest ever in the CT SIA record.
I hope that made sense... ;)

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

--Cryosphere Today Arctic sea ice area gained 109k km2 yesterday, the largest daily gain since March 20, and the twelfth century increase of 2012.
--As noted above by idunno, 2012 area spent 44 days below the previous record annual minimum set just last year. By comparison, 2011 area was only below the previous record minimum (2007's) for a single day.
--2012 SIA was below 3 million km2 for 49 days. 2011 spent just 12 days below that mark.
--2012 SIA has now held the daily minimum record for 96 consecutive days, and 112 of the last 117.
--The 2012 negative anomaly has been larger than 2 million km2 for 63 consecutive days. That stretch has included 10 of the 20 largest negative anomalies on record.

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

I've updated my PIOMAS volume charts, as well. No surprises: things are, as we all know, getting ugly. Or uglier...
The polar ("Death Spiral") graph shows just how close ice volume is getting to becoming non-existent in summer (click for larger image):
This chart clearly shows that, in terms of percentage, the total volume lost this year was the greatest on record at 85.12% (click for larger image):
And this chart shows how quickly the lines denoting maximum volume and volume lost are converging (click for larger image):

We already knew a few weeks ago that the PIOMAS sea ice volume record had been broken, but with the latest data release by the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington we now know the minimum sea ice volume for 2012, as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation...

The "silly season", indeed. Not that I ever expect anything more out of denialists. The thing is, even were the Antarctic ice sheet to somehow melt away entirely in the next six months, denialists would ignore that--and, of course, the catastrophic 60-meter sea level rise--and say, "Yeah, but Fairbanks, Alaska, got two inches of snow last night. So much for your global warming! Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk." (And I'm sure Watts and Goddard would be right there with all the kindergarten-level charts and graphs a denialist could want.)
The depth of ignorance displayed by some (both intentional and unintentional) is astounding, and--often--very depressing.

Skeptical Science's John Mason has written a wonderful article, debunking some of the nonsense that is being spouted by fake skeptics to trivialize the stunning 2012 melting season (Tamino also re-whacks one of those moles): Record Arctic Sea-ice minimum 2012 declared - it's the Silly Season! P...

Karl (September 18, 2012 at 18:10): I come to this site for different reasons.
And just what would those reasons be, Karl? Because judging by your 15 comments to-date, it's been to either complain about how great the site used to be but no longer is (6), to complain that people here have been mean to you (2), to post debunked denialist talking points (5), to generally insult everyone who frequents these forums (2), or some combination of the above. So, again, why are you here? I mean, really?
I'm dying to know...

All models are wrong, but some are useful, as the saying goes. However, when looking at how Arctic sea ice decline is modeled, one might be tempted to say that all sayings are useful, but some are wrong. To be fair, I should be the last person taking a piss at climate models. Hundreds of brill...

@Karl: You'll find no one here ever trying to "close down" rational thought. What you will find here, however, is people intimately familiar with the signs and science behind what's going on, and thus very predisposed to tuning out denialist rhetoric. Or combatting it. Or--my favorite--ridiculing it for the utter nonsense it is. The thing is, anyone who comes in here posting garbage from Watts' silly site, or who comes here to constantly lament how great this site "used to be before it got all political", or who repeatedly ignores the vast body of evidence that supports AGW theory to instead cherry-pick a few out-of-context tidbits they feel support the denailist POV, is going to meet a pretty stiff wall of factual resistance.
I've got no right to suggest anyone go away, so I won't do that here; the more eyes, the merrier. But I do think you'll find a possibly more eager and willing audience for illogical, debunked, non-scientific blather elsewhere than you will here.
Cheers!

All models are wrong, but some are useful, as the saying goes. However, when looking at how Arctic sea ice decline is modeled, one might be tempted to say that all sayings are useful, but some are wrong. To be fair, I should be the last person taking a piss at climate models. Hundreds of brill...